Abstract [en]

There is no broad agreement of the nature of capability in management, planning, engineering, and enterprise architecture literature. Definitions of the concept of capability ranges from being equal to the concept of process to be loosely defined as a collection of resources. This paper presents intensional aspects that are argued to be non-essential for the general concept of capability. Thus, this paper explores the concept of capability with a focus on what capability is not. By making non-essential aspects and distinctions visible we aim to making the concept of capability easier to understand and integrate for practitioners and researchers.

Tell, Anders W.

Abstract [en]

Capability is a long-established term and concept that has found its way to be used to describe organisations. It provides the basis for a genre of analysis, design and planning methods used in several fields. In enterprise architecture frameworks, capability has become a central architectural and fundamental element. In the field of strategic management, it was used in the 1990s to describe the resources and core competencies that a company needs in order to compete in a market, while in military applications, the concept of capability is used for mission planning. It has also been suggested that the design of information systems could be based on the concept of capability.

There is no broad agreement on the nature of capability in the enterprise architecture, strategy, planning and engineering literature. This may lead to problems, as differences in perception and use in and across work practices may hamper the utility of the concept of capability in practical approaches encompassing many different kinds of stakeholders, perspectives and work practices.

The overall research goal of this thesis is to design a general concept of capability, a capability viewpoint and a capability situating method that can be used to adapt the concept of capability for use within enterprise architecture frameworks, to support different work practices, and at the same time to support coherence between work practices.

The research methodology used in this thesis is based on the design science paradigm, which has the primary aim of creating innovative artifacts and new knowledge to solve general and practical problems.

The thesis contributes to a deepened understanding of the varying uses and utility of the concept of capability in different work practices, through an empirical case study of a mega-scale programme. This work also presents three novel artifacts, a general capability pattern, a base capability viewpoint and a capability situating method, which can be used to increase the relevance, use and utility of the concept of capability in the different types of work people do themselves and together with others in organisations. The method provides a way to adapt and tailor the concept of capability to existing enterprise architecture frameworks and to different work practices, in order to lower the barriers of application, and to improve the facilitating conditions for and actual use of capability analysis, design and planning. The results contribute to the field of enterprise architecture by enabling the creation of ISO 42010 compliant situated capability viewpoints through the application of this method.